


bucharest

by thelastavenger



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:20:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22299979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelastavenger/pseuds/thelastavenger
Summary: Bucky adjusts to his new life in Bucharest after escaping Hydra.pre-civil war.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Kudos: 13





	bucharest

“Would you like a bag or a crate?” 

“I’m sorry?” Confused, his brows furrow. His Romanian may be slightly rusty, cut into pieces like the rest of the intel he was fed in the chair, but it can’t be that bad. 

“Would you like a bag or a crate. To carry. For your oranges.” The man says impatiently. He is tall, well built with wide shoulders. The true Romanian mafia-man type. His face is hard and unfeeling. 

“Uh,” Bucky is startled, he hasn’t been given a choice for a very long time. Though it is a simple one to make, his head feels rusty when he weighs up the two options, trying to see if either could have a hidden ending. _It’s fucking plastic or wood, Buck. Get your shit together,_ he thinks to himself. “No. To the bag. I’ll take a crate. Please. Thank you.” He takes the crate under his left arm and crosses the road, weaving through the busy yet slow traffic. 

37 KILLED IN EXPLOSION IN WAKANDA. AVENGERS TO BLAME! 

He sighs. 

He grabs a copy and places 15 Lei on the counter. 

“Păstrează restul.” He smiles. Keep the change. This man is different - he is smaller, he has gaunt cheeks and a kind, kind face. Behind him Bucky sees a photo frame containing a picture of the man, but younger, standing next to a smaller, fuller woman with kind blue eyes and long brown hair. His arm is around her, both of their faces donning a smile that exposed every tooth in their mouths and joy in their hearts. They are holding a document up to their chests for the camera to see. Bucky smiles. 

The man follows his eyeline and his eyes light up. He explains that that picture was taken on the day they bought their first house, the deeds to which they are clinging on to in the photo. They were 20. Bucky deduces that she must be called Inez, because the man’s news stand is called ‘Inez Informează,’ Inez Informs. The man’s smile stretches, something Bucky had thought impossible. He introduces himself as Florin, a lovely name, Bucky thinks. 

Florin goes on to discuss today’s news. 

“It is horrible, everything that is happening in the world. I cannot perceive of a world where we still have not learned from our own mistakes. Yet, here we are.” He looks down. His smile falters. His eyes sadden. “I lost my darling Inez to our revolution. Christmas Day, 1989. The day they called the ceasefire. Had she gone through the town square an hour later, she would’ve been standing here with me. She got caught up in protests at the Ceaușescu’s executions. Hit by a projectile, I was told.” His hand reaches to feel the chain around his neck - on it, a silver ring. “This is all they gave me of her, the Poliția. Wouldn’t even let me see her.” A pained look flashed across his face, his eyes scrunch together. “I just don’t see why people can’t see eye to eye.” He makes eye contact with Bucky and, for a second, Bucky swears he can see into his soul. 

“I couldn’t agree more.” Bucky sighs. 

“I haven’t seen you around here before.” Florin questions. 

“New to the area. But I’m planning on being here for a while, so you’ll be seeing me around.” He offers his right hand. “My name’s James. My friends call me Bucky.” When Florin shakes his hand, he feels a strange sensation in his stomach, a weight lifting off his shoulders. 

This is the first time that Bucky hasn’t been met with complete hostility since the 1940s. It’s enough to take his breath away. 

Anonymity. A fresh start, at last. 

Walking back to his apartment, Bucky thinks back to the days of their Brooklyn shoebox and how his life has come all the way back to where it all started, in a twisted kind of way. The days of Steve raising hell with every guy that looked at Bucky funny, the way there would always be dust in the air, the way the smoke from his cigarettes looked when smoked on the fire escape at sunset. In the distance, he sees two boys sprinting down the street toward him, dodging in between the steady flow of people. They are smiling wide and laughing loud, chasing each other through the city’s chaos. Before he knows it they run around him and he feels their love pass through him, a familiar feeling...familiar indeed. 

_“I don’t think this is gonna work, Buck.”_

_“Of course it’s gonna work. All they want now is money, they don’t care who they get it from. I bet they don’t even ask us.” Bucky smiles his usual cheeky smile, using his hands to smooth his hair down as they approach the bar._

_“Give me a smile?” Bucky asks cheekily. Reluctantly, Steve pulls his lips into a half-smile._

_“Not good enough, Rogers. Gotta have crow’s feet, the lines at the corners of your eyes. Otherwise it’s not a real smile.” He raises an eyebrow and flashes a smile at the man standing at the door. He slips seamlessly into character._

_“Forget her! We’re gonna forget them all tonight. This is a momentous night my friend,” he pushes Steve inside without looking twice at the man standing by the door, “it will go down in history.” Bucky laughs once they’re inside and out of the line of sight of anyone other than the sweaty, drunk bodies packed inside. “Sorry I shoved you.” He’s still laughing while Steve straightens his jacket. Steve feels immensely uncomfortable, being quick to notice a door leading to some kind of patio. Before he can even think about how hard he’s finding it to breathe, Bucky is at his side with two drinks in his hands._

_“Swiped ‘em. Poor fucker hadn’t even gotten his change.” He looks down at his best friend. He smirks, “Bottoms up.” Before he throws his drink back, he raises it up to the sky and confidently acclaims; “fuck the prohibition, fuck the government!”_

_As everyone in the bar cheers, Bucky looks at Steve once more. He winks. Steve smiles._

_Crow’s feet._

‘MORE LIVES LOST DUE TO IMPROPERLY GOVERNED VIGILANTE GROUPS DISGUISED AS HEROES. WHEN WILL IT END?’ 

As quick as he has kicked off his shoes and hung his keys by the door, Bucky is sitting down reading the newspaper. 

‘Captain America, The Falcon and Wanda Maximoff were photographed by several media outlets today in Wakanda, joined also by Russian spy Natasha Romanoff…’ 

Fighting, fighting, and more fighting. Bucky is sick of fighting. Most days he wishes he’d have been left in the ravine. He’d be long since dead, but most of the time dead is more appealing to him than alive in this life. All the things he’s done… 

‘...considered to be a nuclear weapon. Also killed in the explosion was the perpetrator, a man previously thought to have been killed at the fall of the Triskelion, Brock Rumlow.’ 

_Blinding lights. Burning white pain. The sickening crackling of electricity._

_No matter how much he screams, Rumlow will not stop laughing._

A smash. 

Bucky isn’t aware of what he has done until he sees the broken window and the oranges on the floor. The crate. 

After a moment of considering cleaning up the mess, his head is gone again. 

_“You know, you can cry all you damn well want to.” He grins._

_Bucky is losing strength, no longer resisting the restraints, finding it hard to make himself breathe. He is violently sobbing, begging, please, please stop, but Rumlow will not relent._

_“It’ll only make me enjoy this more.”_

_He jabs Bucky in the ribs with his beloved taser baton, the electric, white hot pain radiating throughout Bucky’s body. This time, he hardly screams._

“3255..” He can’t see. 

_“You got a lesson you need to learn.”_

“32557…” He can’t hear. 

_A punch. A cut. A whip._

“Get out of my head, please…” He throws himself against something. Something hard. 

_Screaming. So much screaming._

“Sergeant James Barnes, 32…” He drops to his knees. 

_“Please, please stop.” Another electric shock._

“32...5...57...” He is rocking back and forth on the ground, his knees all cut up by the glass. 

_The head restraints. No, please no. Not again._

“No!” 

_“Asset reset. Local damage repair…”_

“STOP!” His hands slam down and grab at the floor, inadvertently digging into the pile of glass. He is afraid to look around the room, see what other damage he has caused. For a split second he thinks he can still hear the machine, whirring round his head, mashing up his brain, but when he steadies his breath and grounds himself, he realises it is someone knocking at the door. 

“Bucky? It’s Ana. I’m going to come in, okay?” He hears a soothing voice call from the corridor. 

Ana-Maria is his neighbour - she is a resident nurse and has been aware of Bucky’s condition since his first night in the building. She saw him quivering at the front door because the sound of his keys in the door had reminded him of what he would hear when Pierce’s scientists unlocked the cage they kept him in. She had helped him separate his keys that night, and took one to get a copy made. She lets herself in and helps him come down from his episodes - Bucky still can not comprehend her fearlessness. He could kill her in a punch. But the way he talks real quiet and buys in the herbal tea he knows she likes makes her confident that he wouldn’t ever hurt her. 

He feels her hands firmly grip his shoulders. She knows that light touches are too unpredictable for him. She helps him to his feet and leads him to the couch, his vision still slightly blurred. 

“32557038.” Bucky whispers to himself, over and over again, while Ana collects the glass from the floor and wraps it in a used dish towel. She makes tea for them both and stitches up the wounds on Bucky’s hand that are deep enough to require it. They share a look. 

“Th—” 

“Don’t do that. It’s what I’m here for.” She says in her usual stubborn tone. Bucky knows better than to argue. 

“I want it out of my head,” Bucky admits, after a long while of silence, “all of it. It’s exhausting.” A tear rolls down his cheek. 

“I know, it must be. I’m sorry it’s still so bad for you.” Ana cradles her mug. 

“I thought I was getting better.” He feel defeated, and she knows it. 

“Give me your list again.” She smiles. “That’s something you never used to do, and now you rely on it. So you _are_ getting better.” 

“Okay, uh…the rain. The rain on a hot and humid day - that kind of warm rain that you either love or hate, depending on your mood. The warm days. Days that are so unbearably hot, I’d take ‘em over a cold day any time. Too many days spent chilled to the bone during the war. Literally, to the bone. Even in summer my bones were cold. I love the days here when people can barely leave the house - I sit under the sun and can’t feel an ounce of cold in my whole body.” Bucky goes over his mental list of the things he loves and is grateful for - a technique Ana learned in med school. He’s been doing it every day for the month he’s been here, and she’s right, it is helping. “Oh, and I have a new one.” He is proud of himself, Ana observes. She smiles. “Florin. A man I met today. Had a real tragic story, but still one of the kindest faces i’ve ever laid my eyes upon. I felt his soul, just through one conversation. Guy like that, one in a million.” He smiles. 

“See, you just spoke for, like, 10 minutes. You’ve come so far.” Ana soothes. 

She takes his mind off it by telling him about her day as they finish their tea. He can feel his skin healing, every fibre stitching itself back together again. By the time her mug is empty and what’s left of Bucky’s tea has gone cold, the pain is gone. 

“Elena’s parents are coming over tonight.” She gives Bucky a look. “That’ll be interesting.” She laughs, uncomfortably. “It’s the first time she’s seen them since everything went down. Kinda kish we had a better place to show them, but there’s only so much that two med students can afford, y’know?” She asks - and Bucky does. Of course he knows. He knows all about the lengths that a financially independent closeted couple go to to be able to afford a place of their own; he worked two jobs just to be able to see Steve’s smile when he walked in the door after a long and hard day. He knows. 

“So you’re anticipating an awkward dinner?” 

“We decided on take-out and board games. Figured it alleviates some pressure if neither of us are cooking, and the games will fill any awkward silences. Anyways,” she stands up and takes Bucky’s mug from him. “What is it with you and never actually finishing a cup?” Ana chuckles to herself on the walk to the sink. 

When he was in the chair, he was force-fed raw meat and vegetables, tortured until he’s eaten and drank his bodyweight in bleeding steak and electrolyte water. Now, he always leaves something left on his plate or in his cup, as a fuck you. It’s a way that he can feel that he has some power over that time of his life. 

“Guess I just get lost in your stories.” He smiles. 

“Charming,” Ana raises an eyebrow. Once she has rinsed the mugs and put them on the modest drying rack, she grabs her keys and offers Bucky a hug. “I’d better get up there. Didn’t leave a note or anything, and Elena will probably be home by now. Don’t want her worrying.” They share a hug and Ana heads for the door. 

“Bucky,” she turns to look at him, “you know, you can call any time. You don’t have to need me to see me...you can ring me or knock on us if you ever just want company, or...I don’t know.” She smiles. 

“Thank you. And send Elena my regards.” He tugs the corner of his mouth into a smile. 

“Regards,” she chuckles. “So formal.” And with that, she is gone. 

Ever since Bucky had managed to get away he’d been thrilled by the fact he now had more freedom when it came to food and drink. One of the first things he bought himself when he crossed into Romania was an Oriental cook book, his favourite recipe being the Thai red curry. He flips onto the correct page and starts to prepare the ingredients. As he does, he catches himself trying his hardest to keep focussed on positive thoughts because Sarah Rogers had said all those years ago that if something is wrong with the chef, you can taste it in the food. She was always right. 

He eats his freshly cooked dinner on the roof, having taken a book and a bottle of water up there with him. 

The sun sets over the city he now calls home. 

It feels good to be free.


End file.
